This is a diary entry from a blog written by an Iraqi living in Baghdad. After describing enduring a mortar attack of 30 shells, Zeyad had this to say:

U.S. soldiers, who have cordoned the district for the last few days, knocked on our door at 6 a.m. My family was asleep and they didn't hear it. The U.S. soldiers then went to my grandmother's house next door and stayed for four hours, drinking tea and chatting with my uncle. My uncle, a former army officer and a fierce Arab nationalist, seems to have told the American soldiers all about the history of Iraq's colonisers, all the way back to the Mongols and Hulago. My family said the American soldiers, who listened attentively to my uncle's story, apologised and told him that they did not want to be in Iraq either but they did not have much of a choice.

Wow.

Personally, I'm not sure these tactics used early on would have changed the outcome. But I do know that using gestapo tactics, like we did early on, practically guaranteed a poor outcome. Unfortunately, this is likely too little too late.